


To Keep and Be Kept

by mrsskeptic



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Cancer Arc, Cancer Arc (X-Files), F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Suicidal Thoughts, Whump, a couple Goin Thru It :tm:, had to create that marita and mulder tag all by myself, idk what else to tag this as always, mulder really just is goin thru it this fic lol, well so is scully
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:07:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23518951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsskeptic/pseuds/mrsskeptic
Summary: I'm going to hold you 'til the end.Alternatively known as: A fic where Mulder makes a few decisions at a party.
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully, Marita Covarrubias & Fox Mulder
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

“You’ve been invited to _what_?”

Mulder has seen many an incredulous look from his partner. It was not an uncommon practice to see Scully with her eyebrows shot up straight to her forehead, or for a smirk to dance across her cool features in reply to a less-than-enthusiastically-received theory of his. It could even be considered a game four years into their relationship; something he cherishes, especially now: _What makes Scully tick? What will Scully say to this? What story is Scully in the mood for?_ And he’d be lying, of course, if he said he doesn’t enjoy the scoffs that trip from her lips at another story of a Rejoran/Human hybrid baby, or a Bigfoot sighting four miles east of Nowhere, Iowa from one of his many magazines.

But now? Well, Mulder thinks that here, right now, with one hand on her hip and the other resting on the back of her chair, her chin dipping down low to her chest, she’s at her most _unconvinced_.

“A benefit.” He answers, twiddling a pencil between his thumbs, his feet kicked up onto his desk like a kid on holiday. “And I’d thank you not to hold back your tone of shock.”

She purses her lips at that, giving a nod that speaks volumes before she does. “Mm. It’s just that I can clearly recall you _conveniently_ catching the flu right before the last… two -- no, three -- benefits held by the Bureau. What’s so special about this one?”

“For starters, it isn’t the Bureau’s. No schmucking it up with coworkers. Just a _highfalutin_ event with every hot-shot government agent this side of D.C. Second, it was signed personally by a friend of mine, an informant. There wasn’t a note, but I’m guessing not everybody’s invite comes with their own John Hancock. Look.” He slides the gilded card across his desktop, his fingertips resting just above the large, looped letters: _M.C._ Scully picks up the card and examines it, flipping it over in her hands as if she were judging its legitimacy.

“I don’t suppose this... Informant of yours could meet you at a better time? Better place?”

“I dunno, she’s not really from the area.” There’s a brief pause to be found as she inspects the letters scrawled on the front of it -- Mulder watches as her fingertip traces over the ink thoughtfully. He shifts uncomfortably then, suddenly shy, careful to tread to his next sentence. “Uh, listen, Scully, you don’t have to come.” 

“What? Why wouldn’t I?” Her tone is already laced with the gentle cut of a razor blade, her gaze flicking up from the invite, offering something he can’t quite read.

That was something becoming all too common nowadays.

Ever since she’d gotten word of her tumor, Mulder has watched the deliberate folding of secrets that his partner presses to her breast away from him, a stony sort of space where there had only been their hands between them. Sometimes, he’s able to catch her in the act. He’d once seen her escaping to an airport bathroom with a tissue pressed to her nose, another as she held her balance against a hotel door frame. Even now, with the rings around her eyes darkening every time he sees her does she stand like a beacon amidst a sea of opposition, fighting a storm he can’t quite follow. She has become the master at avoiding the unavoidable, tiptoeing around her diagnosis as if it were merely a pebble caught in the carpet of their office. But for Mulder, it’s the only thing he sees. For Mulder, Scully is no longer sick but the cancer herself -- swallowed by it’s greedy throat, filling the corners of the basement until there’s nothing left. He sees Scully’s eyes and Scully’s hair and Scully’s mouth when it moves but he’s afraid they’re fading, fading into the ever-sickness that chokes him like a thick smoke in the room, omnipresent, heavy.

But he doesn’t voice this. 

He knows he can’t and better yet, knows he shouldn’t. It was, after all, his fault she was sick in the first place, a wound that he tears the stitches of time and time again. He owes it to her, to give her that keeping. To give her whatever secrets she wants to keep from him.

_He owes everything to her_.

Shaking his head he chews his next words, choosing them carefully. “Well, what with everything going on, I’m just… I’m letting you off the hook. Giving you the night off to get some rest, or… Do whatever it is you do on your Friday nights alone.”

“Don’t be silly, Mulder, I’m fine. If I wanted the night off, I’d ask for it. I’m not going to crumble just because of a little work, and the sooner you -- and everyone else -- realizes that, the easier it’ll be for me to … To gain a sense of normalcy in the midst of all this.” Her eyes -- which had been wandering in the way they had when she breached the topic of her illness -- cut clear to his own, and he finds himself stiffening under the pressure of it. “Alright?”

“... Alright. You want me to pick you up?”

“Uh, _no_ , actually, I’ve got a -- a thing. Lunch with my brother. He’s passing through on his way to visit Mom, wants to… Meet up, gauge for himself how I’m feeling. How about I just meet you there around eight?”

He gives her a voiceless bob of the head as she collects her coat from the back of her chair, watching as she leaves the card next to his crossed heels to make her way out. “Hey, Scully,” He calls out to her just as she reaches the door. She turns around with her fingers lingering on the knob, arching a defiant brow at him. He can’t help his grin as he asks, “Wanna go to the prom with me?”

She makes a show out of weighing her answers, her eyes rolling towards the ceiling. But then the tension she always holds in her face eventually falls into a smile, a rarity now more than ever, and he feels, for a second, that he’s gained an old spark of something he once knew.

“I’ll have to let Skinner know to invite the _little green men_ to the next Christmas party. Maybe then you’ll make an appearance.”

And with that she leaves the room. He watches her until she’s nothing but a shadow fading into the walls.

Like a weight strapped around his ankles, the cancer doesn’t follow.

He sits and holds its hand as tightly as he would her own.


	2. Chapter 2

Mulder is immediately reminded on why he doesn’t like parties.

The ballroom is too loud, too crowded, too-full of too important people for his taste. He hardly likes settling down in a bar, much less a gathering as big as this one, where he drowns amongst the sea of dirty money and tuxedos too expensive to name. His own had come from the back of his closet; he’d run his finger through a hole in the pocket’s lining tucking his keys away. Every breath around him croons the same note, sings a song of his disbelonging in a city where the secrets run as fast as the Potomac River. If it weren’t for the free scotch he sucks through his teeth and the promise of a case coming his way, he’d be home indulging in cheaper booze and better vices, trying to keep the Glock sitting idly at the end of his coffee table out of his mind -- trying to scrub Scully’s blood from his hands in the form of a leggy brunette filling out the screen of his TV.

_ Scully and porn.  _ He tries not to go too far with that thought, the guilt rising like bile in his throat. 

Sometimes, the world pulls his feet right out from under him.

“Always nice to see a familiar face at these things, isn’t it?”

Grateful for the interruption Mulder swivels on his heel, greeted by the lovely, placid expression of Marita Covarrubias, her head canted high in the dim lights of the dance hall. The navy gown she’s chosen for the night accentuates the bright hue of her eyes, her hair -- woven into a small, elegant updo -- framing her face with a few lonely strands. He wonders how long she had spent eyeing him from the sidelines before making her way over, but figures it’s probably for the best that they hadn’t met up immediately, anyway.  _ Big brother’s always watching. _

“I didn’t think the U.N. sent their assistants to D.C. shindigs,” he says, his tone low.

“I’m here on business, Agent Mulder, same as you.” She extends her hand between them, her glance unwavering through her thick lashes. “Care for a dance?”

He wants to make a joke out of this, for a moment -- lighten the somber air that clings to the woman like a second skin.  _ I try not to make this sort of thing a habit, y’know, dancing with beautiful women _ or  _ shouldn’t you buy me dinner first? _ But the idea of humor suddenly fills his mouth with cotton, dry and bitter. The very idea of acting was something he found tiring now, a persona for the sake of normalcy for a woman for whom nothing was normal anymore. Thinking of Scully made him think of the cancer, and thinking of that made him think of the way the moon shone off the barrel of his gun in the dark of his apartment. He thinks he wants to set his guilt down for a while, if he can.  _ Too heavy _ . And so he takes her offer wordlessly, shedding his scotch at a nearby table and leading her to the dance floor.

They step in time to a familiar tune, some Elton John cover that the small string quartet strums from the stage before them. Mulder politely tilts his head towards the ceiling, holding her hand to their sides, his other at her hip. He can feel the divet where her dress, seemingly backless, ends, cautious in his grip and the silence that lays between them. He chances a single look down towards her only to see her shifting her face from left to right, making a clear judgment on the distance between them and the next couple.

This was proving, with every passing step, to be less and less the solace he wanted it to be.

It isn’t until a few songs later that Marita pulls herself closer to him, her fingers moving across his jacket to rest on his neck. The warmth of her body against his has him craving something, but he can’t quite call its name to his tongue. He moves his own hand to her back instinctually, conscious of his palm smoothed against her bare skin.    
“What do you know about the Wagner case from Wisconsin?” She mumbles with her chin on his shoulder, and it takes Mulder a second to process her words above the music. He’s thankful that she’s finally brought their work into play. Laying his cheek against her hair, he presses his voice to the shell of her ear.   
“Just as much as everyone else. Two weeks ago, three college kids outside of Manitowoc claimed to see a UFO hovering over Lake Michigan about a mile out -- ‘til one of them, Dylan Wagner, disappeared on their way back to the car. Local authorities think the other two killed Dylan and dumped his body in the water -- something about an ex -- but last I heard they haven’t found any trace of him yet.”

“And what do  _ you _ think happened?”   
He gently turns them in place so he has a better view of the entrance, his gaze jumping around the crowd, keeping tabs on anyone who dances too close,  _ lingers too long _ . “I don’t know, you tell me.”

“The German satellite TRTN-2 picked up on some...  _ Peculiar _ wavelengths the night of Dylan’s disappearance. An associate of ours, Dr. Schubert, who aided in the construction of the satellite back in Berlin managed to get his hands on the images captured from it’s location. From my understanding, he’s come across something the government isn’t too fond of him having. You can imagine there are some people within our circles looking to get a hold of him.

“Luckily,  _ we’ve _ been able to get in contact with him, and he’s agreed to meet with a trusted source:  _ you _ . I think this is something far bigger than the both of us, Agent Mulder. I think Dr. Schubert has an answer to something well beyond our reach, and I believe it lies in the solving of this case. Now, if you want the truth of what happened that night -- if you want justice for Dylan Wagner -- you need to ...”

And just like that her words become hollow ringing in his ear, as if someone reached into his skull and flipped a switch. One minute he’s honing in and picking apart every detail Marita’s feeding him, the next he’s gone soft around the edges, fading into the room.

And it’s because Scully’s walked through the door.

There’s something about her that glows in the warm tones of the dance hall. The flames of her hair fall smoothly behind her ears, the color of a copper hull left floating in the sun. She’s chosen a dress Mulder’s never seen her in before; God, he knows he’d remember it if she had. Black silk -- the kind that swallows any light that touches it -- drapes delicately across her frame, thin straps revealing the soft bird-bone of her shoulders, her leg peeking from a slit up the side. It is tasteful, modest, even, and yet his lips are suddenly hungry for the grace of her skin. His fingers itch to touch the length of her neck, across the freckles spotting her chest in constellations.

Even moreso, with a sour pang in his heart, he finds that he just wants to hold her. To hold her, and not even do anything, to hold her and have it returned,  _ to never let go _ . Her, her, more of her, the slow unraveling of himself in the name of  _ Dana Katherine Scully --  _ a constant, never-ending.

She weaves gracefully into the crowd finally, his thoughts blurring, moving out of his sight. He loses the breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“... Agent Mulder, are you listening?”

As if woken from a dream he pulls his head back from Marita’s, the room suddenly spinning. Her icy stare digs deep into his own and he clears his throat, trying his hardest to concentrate on her instead of the woman spitting flames into his stomach from sixty feet away. “Sorry, run -- run it past me one more time.”

“Our middle man will meet you in the foyer at ten o’clock, no sooner. Do exactly as he says. Take what he offers. It’s crucial you meet with Schubert tonight, otherwise it’ll be much more difficult to arrange another meeting with him -- and that’s if he manages to keep his head above water.” Pursing her lips she steps back from him, a rush of cold air filling the space she’s left vacant. “I’m trusting you with this. Please don’t give me a reason not to.”

She’s gone before he even has the chance to reply.

Mulder allows himself another breath, the simple turn of events relaying around him.  _ Dylan Wagner. Dr. Schubert. A satellite. _ He flips them over in his head like the second side of a tape. Most importantly, a UFO had been balanced above Lake Michigan -- that of which he had no doubt -- and now there was possible evidence to back it up.  _ 10 o’clock. _ He checks his watch. He had little over an hour and a half to kill -- enough time to meet with Scully, catch her up, and figure out the next move. 

Except, of course, that finding her was proving more difficult than Mulder imagined it to be.

She had all but disappeared since he’d last seen her wander across the steps leading up to the foyer, turned into fog that teased him, slipping through his fingers. Dana was easily identifiable if not by her vibrant hair than by her stature, something he was finding more and more tantalizing by the second.

Scully.  _ Tantalizing _ .

Oh, how easily those words seemed to fit together.

And finally, after three laps around the room and a stop at the bar, he finds her. 

With an impatient sigh he spots her in almost the exact place where he started -- taking up as little room as possible in the middle of the dancefloor. One hand balances a near-empty glass of champagne as the other digs through her purse, her striking profile catching the light of the chandelier hanging high above them.

(He tries to ignore the way his throat catches when he sees her again.)

She seems to notice his presence before he arrives -- her shoulders lose a little of their rigidity as he makes his way over to her. He likes how comfortable she is around him, how easily she flows when she’s at his side, as if there were one person in the whole world she didn’t have to impress. He briefly wonders if she feels the same way.

“Hi, sorry I’m late,” She starts, giving him less than a glance as she tries to zipper her purse with one hand, “Bill  _ insisted _ on after-lunch dessert… Something we used to do when we were kids. Not to mention there was a bit of an issue at the door. For some reason, they didn’t want to let me in. I had to use my badge to get past the bouncer. Are you sure you gave them my name?”

_ Her lips _ . She’s wearing a different color, he notices, something darker than her usual lipstick. To his disbelief, it makes her mouth even prettier than before. The observation strikes him as funny. Since when has he noticed her mouth?

The silence does not pass under Scully’s radar. “Earth to Mulder. What are you staring at?” She says, glancing over her shoulder -- as if there were anything in the room he could look at besides her. His words finally stumble their way off of his tongue.

“Nothing. You look great.” He holds back the impulse to cringe out of his skin. “How’s your brother?”

If she’s bothered by his strange behavior she chooses to ignore it, brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear as she looks up at him. With her heels, it’s barely a lift of the chin. “Oh, he’s fine. He’s been nothing but…  _ Relentless _ on getting me down to Norfolk. Seems there’s some sort of experimental trial on reducing the size of astrocytomas down in Richmond, and my brother -- as obstinate as he is -- is convinced he’d be able to get me in. Nevermind the differences in medical treatment of nasopharyngeal tumors and astrocytomas or, God forbid, what  _ I _ could actually want.”

She’s looking away from him, her eyes wide in the way she gets when she riles herself up talking about something; if it weren’t for the words coming out of her mouth (astrocytomas, tumors, both dark and dirty things) he might’ve smiled. Instead he settles for a lopsided perk of his mouth as he jests, “Sounds like a fun afternoon.” She huffs a short breath out of her nose in response.

“Listen, you want another drink? We hit the jackpot, Scully.  _ Open bar _ .”

She sighs as her eyes wander to the remnants of champagne in her hand, seemingly forgotten in her ramble. “Yes, actually, another glass might be nice.”

He does her the favor of taking it from her, turning towards the bar. “Same thing?”   
“Yeah, thanks. I’m going to try and find an empty table.”

* * *

Mulder realizes halfway through ordering another glass that he’s yet to mention anything of Dr. Schubert.

He would wring his own neck if he could.  _ What the hell’s gotten into me? _ It’s not as if this is the first time he’s seen Scully in a dress, or Scully with a different lipstick.  _ Is it the scotch? _ He hadn’t even finished his glass, but at the very least he’s sure it wasn’t helping.  _ Is it the lighting? _ No, he’s certain that’s not helping much, either. He glances down at his watch again. There was a little over an hour until the meeting with the mediator. Plenty of time still to bring her up to speed, and maybe -- he meets this thought before he has the chance to snuff it -- even a chat over a drink to spare.

_ Business first _ , he scolds himself. Scully hated to be left out of his plans, he knew that much.

Until then, he was just going to have to clear his head of anything that might get in the way; her, that dress, and the atmosphere included.

Forgoing another scotch under the guise of self-interest, he carefully carries her champagne as he weaves between bodies on the dancefloor. She had wandered from where he’d left her, he noticed quickly, as he filed along the outskirts of the ballroom looking to spot the familiar blotch of red among the heads. The benefit, it appeared to Mulder, was nowhere near winding down. Couples still dotted the floor arm-in-arm, the quartet restless in their repetition of the last twenty years of greatest hits. After his short stint with Marita (a conversation that he kept forcing himself to replay) he had overheard the reason behind the event -- a sort of political conquest, a senator rubbing shoulders with his adversaries. It was an event Mulder wouldn’t usually be caught dead at, and he’s sure Scully would poke fun at him the minute she found out.

He’s too busy crafting some sort of witty remark about the banquet to notice Dana the first time he glances past her, but the second time is enough to knock his senses back into his body.

A man stands close to the redhead’s shoulder, his head stooped down with a cool smirk cracking his cheek. Mulder can tell even from where he is that the other comes from money -- not from the fancy suit or even the classy drink in his hand, but by the way he presses his presence overbearingly against the woman. It’s rare he gets defensive of his partner -- God knows Scully can handle herself -- but her illness has made him prickly recently, wary of the people who have her in mind. After Dr. Scanlon -- Leonard Betts -- Donnie Pfaster -- there was no such thing as being too careful; through no fault of her own, Scully had become a magnet for the unfaithful.

He’ll always blame himself for that.

Mulder breaks through the crowd and stops short of the pair, the walking Armani tux leaning back to peer at him. (As he could’ve guessed, the other regards him with a little more respect than he does his partner.)

“You mind?” It comes out sharper than he intends it to, and the both of them give him a look that makes it clear just how obvious he was. The man glances between the two of them -- Scully’s surprise etched clear across her face -- and raises his hands in mock-surrender, replying, “Sorry. She’s all yours.”

Putting his irritation at the possession of his partner aside, Mulder steps forward to her, holding her glass out with a grimace playing across his mouth. She takes it with a slyness, a simple glance acknowledging his embarrassment before she says, “Wow, Mulder, you couldn’t get him out of here fast enough.” He doesn’t miss the twinkle in her eye, though, or the way her lips curl as she takes a sip from her champagne. (He bookmarks these to examine later when he’s curled up on his couch.)

“I was just trying to catch him before he copped a feel,” he jokes to relieve the tension in his voice, clearing his throat. “So. Wanna dance?”

The question catches both of them off-guard. She’s not shy about letting the surprise mold her expression, hesitantly turning to set her glass next to her purse on the table behind her. “Uh... Sure. Alright.”

“D’you know how to waltz?”   
“A little. Not well. Do you?”   
He huffs a laugh as he shrugs his wrists out of his pockets. “No, I just wanted to see if you did.” He holds out his hand palm-up to her. She takes it with a practiced ease, her other fingers smoothing up the shoulder of his tux before it comes to rest at the top of his shoulder-blade, his arm circling around her.

This, Mulder realizes, is what coming home feels like.

Where dancing with Marita was all awkward hands and clumsy footing, pulling Scully’s frame close to his is as natural as pulling a breath into his body. The gentle touch he places at the small of her back is as smooth as running his fingertips over a map, counting the paces from one point to the next; her feet step in time with his almost immediately, just as they do when they trot side-by-side; their hands meet and poise in the air, Scully’s small palm pressed neatly into his own, her manicured fingers hooked around his thumb. They fade into each other as they shift to the beat, fade into the room until it’s hard to tell where one starts and the other ends, a comfort found only in their presence.

Neither of them say anything for a while. They don’t have to. The music fills in the space between them, the [song from the strings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbZolzwcUzQ) Mulder recognizes crooning lyrics into his head.

_ Some day, when I'm awfully low _

_ When the world is cold _

_ I will feel a glow just thinking of you _

_ And the way you look tonight _

“I meant it. When I said you looked great.” The words pour out of his mouth before he can dam them. Scully doesn’t reply, instead dipping her chin in that thoughtful way she does, a chuckle playing darkly behind her lips. He presses on. “Don’t get me wrong, the pantsuits make the woman, they do. But… I don’t know, you lit up the room when you walked in. It kinda reminded me of the first time we met, y’know, you just -- you barged right into the basement like you owned the place, and you… you changed things for me, Scully. You changed everything I knew. Just seeing you like this… makes me think of everything.”

She stares at him with such tenderness in her eyes that Mulder thinks he could kindle a fire in them. It’s an unspoken thing, this fragileness blooming like wildflowers between them, wispy and overgrowing. It’s just as sad as it is beautiful.

Neither of them knew how many more moments like this they’d get.

Scully rocks back and forth with him to Sinatra, her smile radiant. ( _ Tearing my fears apart…. _ )

“Careful, Mulder. You talk like that, you might get to second base.”

He cracks a genuine grin for the first time all night. “Ooo -- how’d you figure out my master plan?”

They dance like that for a while, the occasional twirl set to a slow instrumental, their swaying footsteps lazy and warm against the beat. He likes this, likes how her head fits perfectly under his chin, likes how her breaths push continually against his stomach.  _ Soft _ . Feather-like, almost. It takes him a few songs too many to break the silence when he says, “I met my informant, by the way. Sounds like she’s got something this time. How good’s your German?”

A moment passes. Then two. For a second he thinks she hadn’t heard him, so he presses his cheek to her head and asks, “Scully?”

It’s then the world, coy and unassuming, caves in on the both of them.

Her weight suddenly leans into his arms, her legs buckling against his. Her fingers fumble against his palm, slacking their grip.  _ Shit. _ For a brief and terrifying second, Mulder thinks she’s going to collapse. He has to shift his hands to her hips to keep her standing, and he realizes with an abrupt horror just how  _ light _ she is, lighter than she used to be, and oh God, how hasn’t he noticed that before? How hasn’t he noticed the way her collarbones push sharply against her sternum, or the sickly-blue veins that pepper across her skin -- skin  _ too _ sallow, skin  _ too _ pale? And the cancer is a rock now, the size of a boulder, and he is Atlas with his world in his hands. He can’t help the panic that climbs in his voice as he says, “Dana, are you alright?”

She keeps herself steady with her palms flat on his shoulders, her eyes screwed shut against the whirl of the room. There’s a long breath before she shakily replies, “Yes, I -- I’m fine, I just… I think I need to sit for a minute.”

One hand rises to her waist as the other holds her arm (her bony wrist like a twig in his palm), leading her to their table. She’s quick to find the chair, fingertips rising to touch at her brow. “Can I get you anything?” Mulder says, his hands fiddling at his sides, anxious for any way to help. She takes her time in answering, “Some water, maybe. What’s the time?”

“It’s, uh… ” He glances down at his watch. 

**Shit** .

“... About five to ten. You said water?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew! bet you guys weren't thinking you'd see this posted. been sitting on this one for a few months, but i've finally bucked up and worked on it! yay! i hope you guys love it as much as i love msr. <3

**Author's Note:**

> phew! been a hot minute, hasn't it? this fic has been sitting in my drafts for months, but i just introduced my gf to txf and i realized i couldn't leave it hanging.
> 
> i plan on posting this in three parts, the first one being the shortest. i have no idea how long it will be between uploads, but i do have a lot written already, so i'm hoping sooner than later! i'm going to date this fic and say i hope all of you are doing well in quarantine, and that this provides you the MSR love you need to get through it. <3 thanks for reading!


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